Brief History of

Mathematics
Ishango bone
• Known as the oldest artifact still in existence.
• Discovered in 1950 in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa.
• Dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period approximately 20,000 years old
• Measures about 10cm and contains series of notches.
 https://mathigon.org/timeline
• 12 common mathematicians:
1. Pythagoreans (5th century BC)
2. Euclid (300 bc)
3. Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (780 – 850)
4.Archimedes (287 – 212 BC)
5. John Napier (1550 – 1617)
6.Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630)
7. Rene Descartes(1596 – 1650)
8. Blaise Pascal ( 1632 – 1662)
9. Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)
10. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1664 – 1716)
11. Thomas Bayes (1701 – 1761)
12. Leonhard Euler (1707 – 1783)
ASSIGNMENT
• Search for the contributions of each civilization in mathematics.

1. Mesopotamia
2. Greek
3. Egyptian
4. Chinese
5. Hindu
6. Mayan
7. Roman
Nature of Mathematics and
Patterns
• The heart of mathematics is more than just numbers, numbers which many
suppose to be meaningless and uninteresting. Imagine yourself walking on the
beach of in the woods. There is beauty, you may see patterns and shapes. You
may wonder how perfectly imperfect the patterns on a leaf, how is the spaces
between petals seems equal?
• Mathematics is everywhere, we may not see or appreciate it but it is there, math
is associated with art, nature, event, and many more.
Mathematics as Science of Patterns
1. Logic patterns
One kind of patters deals with the characteristics of various objects. Another kind deals
with order. Some patterns appear in a sequence while some possess similar attributes.
These type of patterns are common in aptitude test.

Example:
What should be the next figure to this sequence?
Mathematics as Science of Patterns
2 .Number patterns
Working with number patterns leads directly to the concept of functions in mathematics.
It is important that students are able to recognize number patterns to help develop their
problem-solving skill.

The first step in determining the rule that defines the pattern is to look for DIFFERENCE
between two consecutive numbers. If there is no logic (addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division, squares, cubes, primes. etc).

If the numbers in a pattern change in the same way or in the same value each time, then
that type of pattern is called a repeating pattern.
Example
• What is the next number in the sequence: 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, ___?

Answer:
If we get the differences between each pair of consecutive numbers, you will get 2,
4, 2 ,4. these differences did not tell us any pattern at all. But notice that the
numbers are all consecutive primes. So, the next number must be 29.
Example
• What is the next number in the pattern: 5, 7 , 10, 15, 22, _____?

• What should be the number in the blank: 100, 98, 96, 94 __?

• Find the next number in the sequence: 12, 13, 15, 18, 22, ___?

• Find the next two numbers in the sequence: 5, 6, 10, 19, 35, ___, ___ ?
Mathematics as Science of Patterns
3. Word patterns
Used in decoding like:
Consonant blend – words with a group of two or three consonants that each make
its own sound (grow, blend, sleeve, stair, sweet… etc)
Consonant digraph – words with two ore three letters come together to create a
single sound.(chest, shop, sheep, brush, shirt, shade…)
Vowel diphthongs – vowels that glide in the middle. (boil, soil, brown…)
Vowel Digraph – a spelling pattern in which two or more adjoining letters represent
a single vowel sound. (school, clean, each, feet, moon, cheese)
Fibonacci Sequence
• Proposed by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo/ Leonardo Bonacci/ Leonardo of Pisa/
• He wrote Liber Abaci
• He introduced Hindu –Arabic numeral system into Europe
• Fibonacci is a short term for “Filius Bonacci” which means

“the son of Bonacci”

What if Fibonacci numbers?
• The next number is the sum of the last two numbers.

Example:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ……
Golden ratio
• The golden ratio (symbol is the Greek letter "phi)
is a special number approximately equal to 1.618
• It said that if we take 2 consecutive numbers from the Fibonacci numbers their ratio
is very close to the Golden ratio
(Note: Let “a” be the smaller number and “b” be the larger number.)
Use the formula b/a
Example:
(2,3) = 3/2 = 1.5
(3,5) = 5/3 = 1.6666666…
(5,8) = 8/5 = 1.6
 The golden rectangle
• https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/golden-ratio.html
Mathematics as Science of Patterns
4. Patterns in Nature
Patterns that occur in various forms and in different context which can be modeled
mathematically.
 Patterns in Nature
a. Symmetry
- from a Greek word meaning “to measure together”.
- shapes that becomes exactly like another shape when moved in some way: flip, turn,
or slide.
- two objects are said to be symmetrical if they have the same size and shape with one
object having different orientation from the first.
Type of Symmetry
• Reflection Symmetry
• Rotation symmetry
• Translation symmetry
Reflection Symmetry

• Bilateral Symmetry 
• Mirroring an element around a central axis.
• Axis can be in any direction or orientation as long as what’s on one side of the
central axis is mirrored or reflected on the other.
Rotation symmetry

• Radial symmetry
• The rotation of elements around a common center.
• Like reflection symmetry it can occur at any angle or frequency as long as there’s
a common center around which to rotate. 
• used in design to portray motion, speed, and dynamic action.
Translation symmetry
Patterns in Nature
b. Trees
more specifically in graph theory, are undirected graph in which any two vertices
are connected by exactly on path.
Patterns in Nature
c. Tesselation/tiling
a pattern of shapes that fit perfectly together: that is, a pattern of shapes that
have no overlaps or gaps.
Patterns in Nature
d. Waves
A vibrational pattern created within a medium when the vibrational frequency
of a source causes reflected waves from one end of the medium to interfere with
incident waves from the source. The result of the interference is that specific points
along the medium appear to be standing still while other points vibrated back and
forth.
Patterns in Nature
e. Fractals
Is a type of symmetry which are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar
across different scales.
Created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback
loop.
Patterns in Nature
F. Spiral
a curve which starts from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around
the point.